Fatima May 13, 1917

//gloria.tv/embed/frame/video/voQaxBn7Uf9/width/480/height/360The children saw what they thought was a flash of lightning streak across the sky. They were sure it meant that rain was coming. But it was followed by complete silence. No wind, not even a breeze broke the calm and quiet of the moment. They were confused. There were no clouds in the sky. But it must have been lightning. They had better get the flock to safety. Another burst of light flew by them. They couldn’t move.

Then, gently, quietly, what seemed like a bubble of light rested on top of the holmoak tree in front of them, and Mary was there. The most powerful message Mary had ever given the world was beginning. Years later, Lucia described the scene,

“It was a lady, clothed in white, brighter than the sun, radiating a light more clear and intense than a crystal cup filled with sparkling water, lit by burning sunlight.”

To anyone analyzing the visits of Our Lady to earth, it becomes immediately obvious that she had an urgency this time that we’ve never seen before. On that first day, she gave these little children, who could not possibly understand, HER KEYNOTE MESSAGE OF FATIMA. Everything she wanted to communicate to the people on earth was touched on in that first apparition.

Mary opened the conversation. “Do not be afraid. I will not harm you.”

Lucia asked her “Where do you come from?”

Our Lady answered “I come from Heaven”. Then she pointed to the blue skies above.

Lucia asked her “What to do you want of me?”

The Lady responded “I have come to ask you to come here for six months on the 13th day of each month, at this same hour. Later I shall tell you who I am and what I want. And I shall return here yet a seventh time.”

Lucia asked “Will I go to Heaven?”

Mary smiled at her and answered “Yes, you will.”

“And Jacinta?”

“She will go too.”

“And Franciso?”

“Francisco too, but he will have to say many Rosaries first.”

Lucia then asked about two girls who had died recently in her village. One was in heaven, and the other in Purgatory, Our Lady told her.

Mary got back to the point of her visit quickly. “Will you offer yourselves to God, and bear all the sufferings which He sends you, in reparation for the sins which offend Him, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners?”